1. Summarize the following paragraph in one sentence. "Take it from me: physical disability looms pretty large in one's life. But it doesn't devour one
wholly. I'm not, for example, Ms. M. S., a walking, talking embodiment of a chronic incurable
degenerative disease. In most ways I'm just like every other woman of my age, nationality, and
socioeconomic background. I menstruate, so I have to buy tampons. I worry about smoker's
breath, so I buy mouthwash. I smear my wrinkling skin with lotions. I put bleach in the washer so
my family's undies won't be dingy. I drive a car, talk on the telephone, get runs in my panty hose,
eat pizza. In most ways, that is, I'm the advertiser's dream: Ms. Great American Consumer. And
yet the advertisers, who determine nowadays who will be represented publicly and who will not,
deny absolutely the existence of me and my kind."
2. Paraphrase the following.
"This kind of effacement or isolation has painful, even dangerous consequences, however. For
the disabled person, these include self-degradation and a subtle kind of self-alienation not
unlike that experienced by other minorities."
3. Create a summary statement of your own about the essay "Disability" in which you quote all or part
of the following
"Achieving this integration, for disabled and able-bodied people alike, requires that we insert
disability daily into our field of vision: quietly, naturally, in the small and common scenes of
our ordinary lives."
M